“You stay away from there, Homer Bailey!”
“Now, Matilda, I’ll be careful.” Bailey joined him and peered out.
“See up there? That’s the Chrysler Building, sure as shooting. And there’s the East River, and Brooklyn.” They gazed straight down the sheer face of an enormously tall building. More than a thousand feet away a toy city, very much alive, was spread out before them. “As near as I can figure it out, we are looking down the side of the Empire State Building from a point just above its tower.
“What is it? A mirage?”
“I don’t think so-it’s too perfect. I think space is folded over through the fourth dimension here and we are looking past the fold.”
“You mean we aren’t really seeing it?”
“No, we’re seeing it all right. I don’t know what would happen if we climbed out this window, but I for one don’t want to try. But what a view! Oh, boy, what a view! Let’s try the other windows.”
They approached the next window more cautiously, and it was well that they did, for it was even more disconcerting, more reason-shaking, than the one looking down the gasping height of the skyscraper. It was a simple seascape, open ocean and blue sky-but the ocean was where the sky should have been, and contrariwise. This time they were somewhat braced for it, but they both felt seasickness about to overcome them at the sight of waves rolling overhead; they lowered the blind quickly without giving Mrs. Bailey a chance to be disturbed by it.
Teal looked at the third window. “Game to try it, Homer?”
“Hrrumph-well, we won’t be satisfied if we don’t. Take it easy.” Teal lifted the blind a few inches. He saw nothing, and raised it a little more-still nothing. Slowly he raised it until the window was fully exposed. They gazed out at-nothing.
Nothing, nothing at all. What color is nothing? Don’t be silly! What shape is it? Shape is an attribute of something. It had neither depth nor form. It had not even blackness. It was nothing.
Bailey chewed at his cigar. “Teal, what do you make of that?”
Teal’s insouciance was shaken for the first time. “I don’t know, Homer, I don’t rightly know-but I think that window ought to be walled up.” He stared at the lowered blind for a moment. “I think maybe we looked at a place where space isn’t. We looked around a fourth-dimensional corner and there wasn’t anything there.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’ve got a headache.”
They waited for a while before tackling the fourth window. Like an unopened letter, it might not contain bad news. The doubt left hope. Finally the suspense stretched too thin and Bailey pulled the cord himself, in the face of his wife’s protests.
It was not so bad. A landscape stretched away from them, right side up, and on such a level that the study appeared to be a ground floor room. But it was distinctly unfriendly.
A hot, hot sun beat down from a lemon-colored sky. The flat ground seemed burned a sterile, bleached brown and incapable of supporting life. Life there was, strange stunted trees that lifted knotted, twisted arms to the sky. Little clumps of spiky leaves grew on the outer extremities of these misshapen growths.
“Heavenly day,” breathed Bailey, “where is that?”
Teal shook his head, his eyes troubled. “It beats me.”
“It doesn’t look like anything on Earth. It looks more like another planet-Mars, maybe.”
“I wouldn’t know. But, do you know, Homer, it might be worse than that, worse than another planet, I mean.”
“Huh? What’s that you say?”
“It might be clear out of our space entirely. I’m not sure that that is our sun at all. It seems too bright.”
Mrs. Bailey had somewhat timidly joined them and now gazed out at the outré scene. “Homer,” she said in a subdued voice, “those hideous trees-they frighten me.”
He patted her hand.
Teal fumbled with the window catch.
“What are you doing?” Bailey demanded.
“I thought if I stuck my head out the window I might be able to look around and tell a bit more.”
“Well-all right,” Bailey grudged, “but be careful.”